From the monthly archives: "January 2017"

On The Wild Side

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Christine Maccabee  

Many years ago, I found a holly tree that was half-dead in a pot at a nursery. They were closing up for the winter, so were only too happy to sell the holly to me at half the price. Thrilled, I brought it home and planted it with great care on one side of my house. Over the years, it grew nearly as high as the roof.

Several years ago, my holly got a disease and was obviously dying, so with great sorrow, I decided to have it cut down. However, I noticed a shoot coming up one side of the stump and decided to give it a chance. Now I have a lovely young tree, about ten feet tall. As you can see, I do not give up easily on living things.

Just last month, while sitting at my computer,  I heard a commotion outside my window. It was a fluttering of wings, but mostly some loud screeching or calling. Looking out, I saw two blue jays, one of which was a juvenile. The older, larger adult was broadcasting a message out to the rest of his clan, I suppose, saying “No berries on this holly.” I have learned that birds have specific calls or songs for specific purposes, the truth of which reveals their amazing innate intelligence (which some call instinct). Indeed, sadly, even though those two blue jay scouts had found a holly tree, there were no berries on it because it is a male.

Some people do not like blue jays, especially not when they come to feast at their bird feeders. Jays have gained an unfair reputation as bullies, even bandits, due to the mask patterns around their eyes and an occasional nest robbery. In fact, blue jays are related to crows and ravens, which are known to be carnivorous, but rarely eating the eggs of other birds. J.J. Audubon called his drawing of blue jays “Crested Crows,” which is a translation from the Latin. They will even eat your cat’s food and pluck out the eyes of dead animals. Some people call them “winged vagabonds.” Call them what you like; I think they are beautiful.

According to naturalist Calvin Simonds, the blue jay’s reputation as a nest robber is “much overstated,” as they prefer nuts, acorns, seeds, and small fruits.1 In fact, the blue jay is actually a tropical bird, which has expanded its range through North America, as far north as Maine. Talk about adaptation of a species! I admire the blue jay for its pluck. As for the “bully at the bird feeder” accusation, I believe smaller birds are simply intimidated by the blue jay’s large size. I have never seen a blue jay bully my smaller birds, although some animals—as well as some human beings—seem to exhibit inbred, bullying tendencies.

After the disappointment expressed by my two jays in the holly tree, I decided I need more hollies, female ones this time, to get berries for all my birds. I already have dogwoods on my land, but not nearly enough native elder, cherry, crab apple, or holly. Red cedar is a good tree for wild fruit, but is known to create disease in your orchard trees if it is within one mile of them. However, on Cape Cod, a birder counted 20,000 migrating robins in a cedar tree grove, eating their fill until finally leaving to go further south, so cedar is a great habitat in the right places.

But, I digress…now back to the holly. I emailed a naturalist friend, who has a stand of female holly trees. Before winter is out, I will be rooting as many cuttings from his hollies as I am able, so, in time, I will have plenty of wild fruit to help my frugivore-feathered friends through the winter. So, what’s a frugivore, you ask?

In my research, I learned that some birds are frugivores, or fruit lovers. Besides blue jays, other frugivores are robins, bluebirds, thrush, mockingbirds, catbirds, and cedar waxwings, along with others, I am sure. Developing habitat for wild birds and bees and insects of all sorts requires appropriate and diverse vegetation. So, I must thank my blue jays on the holly outside my window for spurring me on to a better wildlife management plan. Seeds in my feeder and suet are not the only ways I can help my kin.

I do not care as much about the ornamental qualities of hollies and dogwoods, but more about their usefulness for wildlife. After all, what would this world be like without the voices of the birds, the buzzing of the bees (all wild fruiting trees get flowers first), the astounding colors of flowers, and the voice of the wind through the trees, even my poor little male holly tree; perhaps it will be thrilled to have a few females around!

 

Looking Back – 1915 — The Wreck of the Blue Mountain Express, Part 3

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Note: This is the third of three articles about the wreck of the Blue Mountain Express between Thurmont and Sabillasville in 1915.

by James Rada, Jr.

On June 25, 1915, the Blue Mountain Express bound for Hagerstown crashed head-on with a mail train coming east from Hagerstown, crumpling the two engines and sending a baggage car off the bridge where the wreck occurred and into the ravine below. Coleman Cook, engineer; Luther Hull, fireman; J. R. Hayes, fireman; Mrs. W. C. Chipchase, Baltimore; and Walter Chipchase, Baltimore, all died in the crash. Twelve others suffered serious injuries.

Edgar Bloom, a dispatcher for the Western Maryland Railroad, took responsibility for mixing up the right-of-way orders issued from Hagerstown that had caused the crash.

What if there was another contributing factor in the accident that no one realized because it had happened months earlier?

William H. Webb was a sixty-five-year-old watchman on the bridges west of Thurmont. Each day, he would walk to his shanty next to the bridges from his home on Kelbaugh Road. Every day, his wife, Sarah, would have one of their children or grandchildren take William his lunch.

“As watchman of those bridges, Mr. Webb’s position was an important one. The safety of many passengers and trains depended upon his watchfulness during the hours of the night. He walked those bridges at regular intervals during all hours of the night,” the Frederick Post reported.

By 1915, he’d been an employee of the Western Maryland Railroad for thirty-five years. His job was isolated, but he enjoyed it.

Webb was Roger Troxell’s great-grandfather. According to stories that his mother told him, “One of the children or grandchildren took him his lunch one day. It was pouring down rain and he found him (Webb) sitting on the railing holding his umbrella, and he was dead.”

This differs from the accounts in the Frederick Post and Catoctin Clarion. They reported that the day watchman had found William lying beside the cross-tie block on February 24, 1915.

“When found his overcoat was drawn up over his shoulders, and a raised umbrella lay beside him,” the Frederick Post reported.

The Catoctin Clarion explained that it appeared as if Webb had come east from his shack, across the iron bridge to “signal” the Fast Mail train going west soon after 6 o’clock, and while walking to his post east of the bridge was stricken with heart trouble and died.

The day watchman telephoned to Thurmont and Dr. Morris Birely, and Magistrate E. E. Black came out to the bridges to examine the body. No marks were found on it, and Birely said that heart failure was the cause of death.

Although this was months before the summer wreck, there’s no indication that another watchman was hired to replace Webb. Also, one of the trains that wrecked was the fast mail train that Webb usually signaled.

Had Webb still been alive and on the job, he may have been able to signal the trains to stop before they wrecked on the bridges. Bloom may also have been able to call the shanty directly about the mix-up, rather than telegraphing a message to the Western Maryland Railroad Station in Thurmont in the hopes to stop the train before it left the station.

William H. Webb

The Present Past

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Park Lane Continued

by Brian R. Waesche

The house at 108 Park Lane, as it progressed from a primitive, two-story log cabin (c.1800-1870s) to Maryland farmhouse (c.1870s-1910), and finally to the 12-room estate house as it looked until 1987. Representations drawn by the author.

Like many traditional homes in our region, 108 Park Lane evolved in phases, chronicling four distinct eras in its record. Charles Colby of Herndon, Virginia, conducted much research on the house after taking an interest in the place as a teenager between 1971-81 when his parents owned the residence. The exploration of Mr. Colby’s into his parent’s home has contributed greatly to my own, shedding much light on the alterations made to the log cabin built there long before Thurmont grew up around it.

John Henry Rouzer, who was conveyed the home in 1870, remained there until his death in 1906, and is responsible for the second era of the home’s architectural advancement, likely completed in the late 1870s. Rouzer added a dining room and kitchen to the rear of the home, with a fireplace between and a steep “cupboard”-staircase against the back-most wall, rising from the kitchen to a bedroom in the expanded story above. Unchanged by Rouzer, the cabin had only two bedrooms upstairs, Rouzer’s addition adding two more over his dining and kitchen areas, with one accessed through the other. Rouzer’s wing was just shy of matching the cabin’s width, allowing a covered dual-level, stacked porch system to span the southern side of the addition. A complete covering of the home in clapboard siding completed Rouzer’s renovation. Specific to the rear addition, a reasonably unaltered example of the layout Rouzer achieved can be seen at his cousin, Col. John Robert Rouzer’s home, the Thurmont Historical Society’s “Creeger House.” Col. Rouzer’s home was enlarged in 1876 from an 1820 two-story log cabin with the same layout as described above.

Leonard R. Waesche purchased John Henry Rouzer’s farm in 1907 for $5,200 from the widow, Ella Rouzer. A civic man, Waesche laid out his property with roads and lots, perhaps simply for hobby, as he never developed the majority of his plans. The Rouzer lane became the first new road over the grounds. Called Park Lane today, it was first called Waesche Road, reflected on deeds such as those for 108 and 109 Park Lane as late as 1955.

By 1920, Waesche had transformed the Rouzer home to a sizeable estate house for his large family. The Rouzer home faced Water Street, but Waesche’s new road passed by its northern side-elevation, causing him to reorient the dwelling’s layout in an extensive remodel so that it faced his surnamed avenue. The front door was relocated between the living and dining rooms, emulating a center-hall plan, in contrast to the informal arrangement Rouzer planned. Its underside facing the new entry, Waesche broke the original stairs into thirds and arrayed the treads of the middle fraction into a “U”-shape, placing the base directly ahead of the primary entrance, 180-degrees from its former location.

Waesche deconstructed the open porches and set new footings in their place to eliminate the home’s “L”-shaped footprint—the shape the stone cellar retains—to compose instead a large rectangular perimeter. The space gained allowed a service passage on the first floor and allotted square footage to reframe Rouzer’s adjoined second-story bedrooms into four rooms, flanking a previously nonexistent hall between the tops of the main and kitchen stairways. Above the main stair, another “U”-shaped stair mimicked the one below and led to a dormered third level, accommodated by the all-new hip roof. One step lower than the original cabin, the second-floor area of Rouzer’s addition was heightened to create a uniform ceiling height to prevent interference with the revised roof and third floor overhead. The step-down remained visible by the differing header heights of the upper windows and is quickly noticed today as Waesche’s leveling of the trusses bearings have since been reversed on both the front and rear of the domicile.

The Waesche house lastly received its signature concrete porches and was finished with stucco compound, giving the home a much more formidable aesthetic— possibly a queue Waesche enjoyed at the Catoctin Furnace Ironmaster’s house he vacated upon purchasing the Rouzer property. Another noteworthy feature of the home has always been the iron fireplace insert marked with “James Johnson & Co.,” surviving in the house today; one of three extant in Frederick County, another is said to be in Johnson’s Springfield Manor. The remarkable fit within the cabin’s fireplace suggests the masonry was laid around the insert, making it an invaluable tool in dating the cabin’s construction, as James Johnson’s tenure at Catoctin Furnace existed between 1774 and 1803.

Predeceased by his wife in 1928, L.R. Waesche died in 1934. Daughters, Florence Daisy (never married), and Phoebe Grace (who never lived away from their parents), retained the home, where Grace’s husband, David Firor, and daughter also lived. Waesche’s middle daughter, Mary Amelia (also never married), joined her sisters at Park Lane after retiring from William Penn High School in 1943. Mary Waesche co-wrote the text Junior Training for Modern Business, from which she received handsome royalties for the remainder of her life. She cared for her late father’s home as diligently as she had her own in the Philadelphia suburb of Wyncote, Pennsylvania, which she had designed by Architect Llewellyn Price and was featured in the March 1937 issue of Better Homes & Gardens before her return home.

Rouzer’s use of the site as a farm left a two-story chicken coop and a large bank barn with haylofts and a connected wagon shed and corncrib. At the southeast corner of the house was a two-story summer kitchen with cellar, separate from the house by a covered stoop with spigot and sink draining into the garden. The stoop’s concrete floor covered a deep well with a chestnut log inside, a common feature for pumps in the area. Charles Colby recalls early 1900s Indian Head pennies placed in the slab’s pour, dating the Waesche expansion. The upper rooms of the summer kitchen had chains and shackles affixed to the walls used by Rouzer to secure the slave-laborers that farmed his lands. Charles’ father, Lauren Colby, spoke of the shackles at his home to the disbelief of patrons at the neighboring American Legion, and bets were taken before a group was led to see the chambers for themselves. While the summer kitchen survives, all pre-abolition hardware has been removed. Diagonal from the summer kitchen was a final brick smoke house covered in vines, and beyond that, a shallow fishpond that Waesche formed large enough to have a center island. Waesche’s grandson of the same name, who went by “Dolph,” recalled wading out to the island as a child and showed his grandchildren—myself included—the two-dotted scar of a bite he received at his inner-elbow from a water snake.

David Firor died of a brain hemorrhage at the home in 1948, and Daisy Waesche in 1952, leaving Mary and Grace alone. By 1962, the sisters were spending winters vacationing in destinations like Mobile Bay and Hawaii, and eventually decided to move to Boulder, Colorado. It was at that time that the idea arose to pass the family home to then thirty-five-year-old nephew, Dolph, but this was prevented by familial disagreements. Against L.R. Waesche’s Will, requesting the home never be sold, the sisters used the intersecting boundary created by the H&F Railway to break the home-place away from its estate, leaving the house and 6.49 acres for sale. Once spreading beyond Woodland Avenue and across the areas developed today as Clarke Avenue and Tacoma Street, the Waesche family still retains much of 108’s original acreage.

Frederick real estate agents Erik and Gisela Florander bought the Park Lane home, and it was rented to Malcolm Parks, Jr., who moved his family from Indiana after he co-founded Tab Books Inc. of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, in 1964. In 1971, the home was purchased again by the Edwin C. Creeger American Legion and was immediately re-listed, stripped of its remaining acreage. This marked the beginning of the Colby family’s ten-year ownership during which they further modernized the home with central air-conditioning and a first-floor guest bathroom. Next to buy were Bryan & Debra Coover who sold to Luisa Faux-Burhans and Richard Allen less than three years later.If any residents have older photographs of the 108 Park Lane house or property they are willing to share, please contact the author at Brwaesche@gmail.com. The Waesche Family album has a few images that depict only the west side of the house.

The Supermarket Gourmet

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These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Buck Reed

Rolling pins flattening pizzas and sweets.

Cast iron skillets that sear and brown up our meats.

Chef knives that cut up our veggies like bling.

These are a few of my favorite chef things!

As a personal chef, I have been in more than a few home kitchens, so I can tell who actually cooks and who does not. No, I do not pass judgment, although I would like to see more people cooking. I can usually tell if they cook by the gadgets that fill their drawers, or the lack of them. Sometimes their gadgets are carefully put away in the packages they came in.

So, what kind of culinary tools do you need? First, we must determine what kind of cook you are. Wood workers use different tools then metal workers. One of the reasons professional chefs have so many tools is we aspire to be proficient in so many culinary disciplines.

A few things or gadgets that every cook needs include the following:

 

Instant Read Thermometer. A good thermometer can help you accurately measure the temperature of cooked poultry and meats, as well as bread and baked goods.

Knives. In your kitchen, you want knives that you are comfortable using, but if you are going to use them every day, try to use the knives that are designed for specific tasks.

Chinese Cleaver. This looks like a battle ax, but when used properly, it is a precision culinary instrument. With practice, it can be used to chop or slice most anything you might need, plus the size of it makes it great for transferring ingredients and can even double as a make-shift spatula.

Rubber Spatula. This is great for getting the last bit out of a mixing bowl. Getting a silicone one that can stand the heat of up to 400° can be used to stir soups and sauces without fear of scratching the bottom of your pan.

Cast Iron Skillet. There is a reason your grandmother used one of these for everything: they are awesome, just like her. They are great for searing steaks and poultry, and if you haven’t used one to bake your cornbread you are missing out. This pan was made for pan roasting.

Tongs. These are great for turning food over in a hot pan, as well as transferring portions to a plate. Note: Meat Forks are for slicing and serving prepared food, not as a cooking tool. As your meat is cooking, you do not want to poke holes in it and allow the juices to escape.

Dishers (AKA ice cream scoop). These are great for portioning food and can be used by bakers to accurately portion cookies or drop biscuits.

Mandoline Slicer. I had to include this in the list, because when I was on cruise ships, it was said I couldn’t cook without one. But unless you are slicing 80 pounds of zucchini or 75 pounds of potatoes, this may not be worth having.

 

With all the fancy kitchen and cooking gadgets coming out on TV, it can be difficult deciding what you need and what you can do without. A good rule of thumb before buying something new: Will you use it, and can you use it, for more than one function?

Have a question about this article or any articles from the past? Maybe you have an idea about a future article. If so, I would love to hear from you at rguyinthekitchen@aol.com.

Chaney Twins Announce New Book

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Rianna and Sheridan Chaney are excited to announce the eighth book in the Chaney Twin’s Ag Series, Ranching — It’s All About Family. This book not only introduces several new ranching practices like calving sheds, solar panels to pump water, and drones used in agriculture, but it also highlights the many faces of the American Ranch Family—showing the incredible faith, community, work ethic, and, above all, commitment to the land, cattle, and product ranchers produce. Ranching — It’s All About Family features two kinds of families: a five-generational ranching family in Torrington, Wyoming (the Ochsners), and the Cross Diamond ranch family in Nebraska, owned by Scott and Kim Ford, where many families make up the workforce, including Rianna and Sheridan’s dad, Lee Chaney.

For more information about the Chaney Twins’ Ag Books or to order a book, visit Rebeccalongchaney.com or call Rebecca Chaney at 240-446-4557 or 308-785-8064.

Books are $12.00 each. Eight-book bundle discounts are available as well as Box discounts for Ag groups.